He dealt well with Abram for her sake. He had sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
Domesticated camels were used for transportation around 2000 BCE.
History/Archaeology
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The cited passage
The servant took ten of his master’s camels, and departed, having a variety of good things of his master’s with him. He arose, and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time that women go out to draw water. He said, “Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, please give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water. The daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let it happen, that the young lady to whom I will say, ‘Please let down your pitcher, that I may drink,’ then she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink,’—let her be the one you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher on her shoulder. The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin. No man had known her. She went down to the spring, filled her pitcher, and came up. The servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please give me a drink, a little water from your pitcher.” She said, “Drink, my lord.” She hurried, and let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will also draw for your camels, until they have finished drinking.” She hurried, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw, and drew for all his camels. The man looked steadfastly at her, remaining silent, to know whether Yahweh had made his journey prosperous or not.
Showing the first 12 verses of this passage. Read the full passage in context
The man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives on the camels,
Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two companies;
thirty milk camels and their colts, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten foals.
They sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
Anatomy of the claim
- Documented Archaeological evidence for domesticated camels in the southern Levant is dated no earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE. Sapir-Hen & Ben-Yosef (2013)
- Documented Genesis depicts the patriarchs using domesticated camels around 2000 BCE, more than a thousand years before that archaeological horizon.
- Debated Whether the patriarchal camel references are a later anachronism or reflect limited, sporadic domestication earlier than the main archaeological horizon is debated. Kenneth Kitchen (2003); Randall Younker
What the text says
Genesis 12:16 and later passages describe Abraham and the other patriarchs owning and traveling with camels, treating domesticated camels as common around 2000 BCE.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.